The Joy of Gardening

I am a relatively newcomer to gardening. Though I grew up in the countryside (Avoca, Co. Wicklow) where we had a lovely big garden with a fruit and vegetable patch with strawberries, gooseberries, carrots and lettuce and the like, when we moved to Dublin I kind of lost touch with all that.

Recently though I have had real yearning for the country life again. I keep having fantasies about moving to the countryside, where I can see fields, mountains, forests. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older but my inner country girl is finding her way out again. And its not just the landscape I yearn for, but it's also the smell of soil, and the worms, and just growing things. Hence, the gardening.



Above is a picture of our lovely balcony garden. We live on the top floor of a block of apartments in Monkstown, so we get sunlight nearly all day. Our balcony is not big, just 12ft by 4ft, but it is enough to have a bit of a garden.

At the moment it has a mix of flowers, herbs and vegetables. I have jasmine and pansies, and a lovely fuschia plant. Below are my lettuce plants (a mix of lollo rosso, butter lettuce and kos), which I am proud to say I grew from seed (watching something grow from seed is amazing!). There are radishes and spring onions also sown in there. Underneath them is thyme, parsley and lavender.


Indoors on the window ledge are our herbs - basil, coriander (which is getting very big) and mint. I am growing some cuttings from the mint as I would like to make some real mint tea. I have had it before and it knocks the socks of the packaged stuff. I have harvested the parsley and thymea few times already, and ovendried them, which was surprisingly easy.


There's also spider plants, a fern, a peace lily, and a bonsai tree. It sounds alot, and it probably is for the small apartment that we have, but I really feel like there's no such thing as too many plants.

Mental health studies have shown that watching things grow is really beneficial to one's state of mind and general happiness. Apparently they have done tests and the brain waves, when a person is gardening, do a wonderful calm dance. I don't know about the science of it but all I can say is that is has really brightened up my "summer".

An Irish "Summer"

When I originally started this post it was to give out about the Irish so-called "summer". I was going to moan about the fact that it had rained every day since the beginning of June - over 50 days at last count. I had uploaded the picture above (from a weathercam on O'Connell bridge), of miserable wet Irish people, walking around, as many of them do, with no umbrellas, and of the dark and dreary streets of Dublin. It was going to be quite a depressing blog.





Thankfully though, the weather has finally broken and in the last couple of days we have gotten to see some sun (photo above from traffic-cam on O'Connell St today). So instead this is a blog about the funny things I have heard people say about the weather over the last couple of months. I like to think they have an almost Zen koan quality ("what is the sound of one hand clapping?") to them. Though I have to say I'm not too sure whether, with the Irish sayings, enlightenment is the aim. Still, I think they score highly for their entertainment factor.

Irish sayings about the weather:

- "That's very wet rain"
- "We're going to get some weather tomorrow"
- "It's a soft day"
- "It's a dirty day"
- "Real men don't use umbrellas"
(This is not so much a saying as an attitude, though Eric did hear a workmate say something to that effect. Eric's response was 'so what, real men just get wet'?)

The World According to Hank

Eric's Dad, Henry, is one of the most original and radical thinkers we know. He has had a huge influence on who Eric is and the way he sees the world, particularly in his politics. Sometimes Eric will talk about this influence at his gigs and he'll describe Henry as a 'militant trade-unionist, working-class socialist, pacifist maverick'. It's funny, because even though myself and Eric have completely different backgrounds and come from opposite ends of the world, my Dad was the very same.

And at nearly 84, Henry is still going strong. I don't know if you can see it in the photo or not but the badge on his hat, which his granddaughter Jenny gave him, says 'Angry Citizen' (which interestingly enough describes my state of mind at the moment, but more on that later). The raised fist is his standard salute.

Anyway, Henry is also known for his sayings, which Eric loves to repeat. Below is some of our favourites (if you have your own favourite please feel free to add to our comments section):

"The fatal flaw of capitalism is that it is predatory and de-humanising" (The more I think about this, the truer the statement is)

"Never underestimate the ignorance of the ignorant masses" (A comment I heard, particularly around the time of the re-election of Bush)

"My best quality is my humility" (This is one of my favourites)

"Agitate, agitate, agitate" (It's a pity they don't teach this in schools)

"Always question authority" (Eric says that this is unless it is Nita or Hank)

And last but not least:

"There isn't anyone eating a better meal than we are tonight!" (more on Nita's cooking in a later blog)

Pesto is Besto!

This year has been a great year for our basil. For some unknown reason (unknown because our summer has been a total washout) our basil plants went crazy - growing up to nearly three feet! This is probably not so amazing for you who live in a country where the summer is hot and where basil thrives, but here in wet and wild Ireland our basil bushes are practically miraculous.

So anyway last night we decided to harvest them. I wish I had taken a photo of the before, but above is the photo after (I'd just like to say that the basil on the table is from just one of the plants - it was alot of basil). We had so much that Eric decided to make pesto.

By the way, Eric would like this blog to be called Pesto is Besto (the trick is to say it in an Italian accent with lots of hand flourishes apparently), and in fairness how could I say no to a man who looked this cute in an apron?

Pesto does take a bit of time and effort, but if you have ever tasted fresh pesto then you know that it's worth it. Commercial store-bought pesto doesn't even come close. Eric uses a recipe by an Italian chef called Giorgio Locatelli. We got his book for Christmas and it has very interesting pieces on staples in Italian cooking like pesto.

It seems that every Italian family has their own recipe, which is usually a closely guarded secret. Even the Vatican kitchen apparently closes it's doors when they make pesto. Locatelli, himself, is a pesto-maniac. He has a restaurant in London but flies his basil leaves in from a particular place in Italy where the basil grows on a particular terrain that catches the sun at the right time of day. I'm sure the carbon foot-print makes it taste even better.

However, I shouldn't be giving Giorgio such a hard time since he is generously sharing his pesto recipe in his book. I'm sure it's a pretty basic recipe, but it's simple and tastes very good.

Ingredients:

150g basil

2 cloves of garlic

250ml extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons pinenuts

Step 1: Chop up garlic

Step 2: Measure out oil.

Step 3: Bung in blender with basil and the rest of the ingredients and whizz.

To be inserted: Photo of Eric happily eating a big bowl of pasta with pesto

And hey presto, pesto!

Our West Wing Obsession

Last Christmas I bought Eric The West Wing Season VII dvd box set. Having never even seen one episode of the The West Wing I thought it would take us a while to get through it. We ended up watching the whole series in two weeks. And after a good solid six months of watching little else, I can now safely say that we are officially obsessed.

The signs of this sickness are pretty evident and severe. We quote The West Wing all the time. We talk about the characters as if they were real people. We even visited Washington DC because of The West Wing (see proof below). At least I did anyway.


A few Christmases ago the Kirby kids gave wonderful posters to people as presents entitled What we love about... (They love Eric because he is the King of Fairies. I say, who wouldn't?) So I am entitling this top three 'What we love about The West Wing':

1. Great roles for women - CJ and Donna are two wonderful characters. They are dynamic, smart, warm and funny. It's a pity there is more roles like this for women in television or film.

2. Super dialogue - sayings and phrases from the show just stick in your head. Like when Bartlett was first running and they were trying to figure out a game plan, Leo said 'Let Bartlett be Bartlett', meaning Barlett as himself, without any spin-doctoring, could win the presidency. This is a handy phrase that can be adapted easily such as 'Let Eric be Eric' or 'Let Kusi be Kusi'. You get the message.

3. Martin Sheen as President Bartlett - when we watch his portrayal of an American president it makes us think of what the president of America should, and could, be like. It just makes me even sicker when I see George Bush making such a hames of the office.

Joe's beer-tapping celebration

One of the highlights of our recent trip to America was Joe's beer-tapping celebration in Columbus.

Joe is a librarian by day and a master home-brewer by night, and last year he won a competition with Barley's brewpub in Columbus (www.barleysbrewing.com). The prize was a chance to brew his beer in their brewery, which Barley's would then supply on draft for a month. The winning brew was a barleywine, which Joe called 'Meister Eckhart's Spark of the Divine Barleywine' and the beer-tapping was the first official airing of Joe's barleywine to the public.



It turned out to be a very impressive event, a real coming together of enthusiasists and connoisseurs, all of whom obviously took beer-making seriously. Joe was a judge of this year's competition and I was amazed by the precision with which the entrants were graded. The complexities of the taste of each beer were minutely teased over.

We also had a nice gathering of people to cheer Joe on. Sally and Ben came up from Huntington. Our friends Jami and Jason were there also, as well as many of Joe's friends. The heads of all the main breweries in town were also there. All in all, it was a big do and it was great to see Joe getting recognition for his talent. Cheers Joe.